Puppets keep Salisbury couple kids at heart

Ed and Brenda Hanna have been performing at Kutztown Folk Festival for 41 years.

Ed and Brenda Hanna are pictured with puppets Old McDonald, Minerva the… (Harry Fisher, THE MORNING…)

July 04, 2013|By Jaime Klein, Of The Reading Eagle | By Jaime Klein, Of The Reading Eagle

Many years ago, Ed Hanna was fresh out of the Marine Corps and studying at what was then called Kutztown State College.

Focused on school, Ed decided he couldn't afford to meet any girls.

But then he found himself sitting in the library at the same table as a pretty girl named Brenda. To catch her attention, Hanna began to sigh to himself. He did it again and again until she finally asked, "Is something wrong?"

He asked Brenda if she'd have a milkshake with him.

She said yes.

Little did they know that come 2013, they would be performing a puppet show at the Kutztown Folk Festival for their 41st year and that they would be performing with their grandchildren.

This year, Ed and Brenda Hanna of Salisbury Township will perform the Furry Friends puppet show three times a day (11 a.m., 1 p.m., 3 p.m.) throughout the festival's run, which ends Sunday. They also sell toys and puppets in the General Store behind the Children's Stage.

Brenda and Ed, parents of local meteorologist Ed Hanna, have worked at the festival since 1972, when Brenda Hanna sold her handmade puppets in pig stalls on the festival's grounds.

The next year she performed for the first time, and in the late 1990s, she took on the role of Children's Stage manager.

Their show this year is about farm life and focuses on puppet Farmer MacDonald's farm animals, especially Quacky, the yellow duck who feels useless. During each show, behind the red barn door that is the Children's Stage, five puppeteers man Farmer MacDonald, Quacky and the other barnyard characters.

"It's fun," Brenda Hanna said. "I'm a kid at heart. I never grew up."

The show is prerecorded, which allows the couple to interact with the audience more. For example, at one point, a pesky goat sneezes while chewing on a scarf; during the sneeze the audience is sprayed with a squirt gun.

On Monday afternoon, Ed Hanna began the day's second show by introducing Quacky to the roughly 45 people in the audience.

Once the show started, children in the crowd learned of Quacky's plight: In order to prove his usefulness, Quacky decides he must find the runaway Bunny Foo Foo. But he needed help. Anytime Foo Foo made an appearance, Quacky instructed the children to yell "Foo Foo."

On a hay bale in the audience, William Detavernier jumped up and screamed "Foo Foo" when he spotted the rabbit puppet peeking out from a window.

Eventually, Quacky found Foo Foo, and the show closed with the cast singing "Old MacDonald."